板式换热器性能的数值模拟

建立了人字形板式换热器冷热双流道的流体流动与传热计算模型,利用计算流体力学软件对5组不同速度工况下换热器内流体的流动和传热进行了数值模拟,分析了换热器流道内的速度场、温度场和压力场.结果表明:数值模拟得到的板式换热器进、出口温差和压降与试验测量值的误差均小于6%;换热器内流体的流动和传热存在明显的不均匀性,导致其进、出口的另一侧出现明显的传热"死区";换热器的总传热系数和流道阻力均随着流体流速的增大而增大.     

Performance Prediction of Compact Fin-and-Tube Heat Exchangers in Maldistributed Airflow

An experimental study of a fin-and-tube heat exchanger was performed in two different configurations (single and three-screen mode). To this end, a test rig was constructed to evaluate the heat transfer capacity on the air side and water side. A wide range of Reynolds numbers on the air side was investigated. A series of measurements was performed with uniform inlet flow conditions. These served to determine the heat transfer correlation for the fin type using the Wilson plot method. No correlation was available, as the fin is an adapted inclined louvered type. To validate these results, a thorough uncertainty analysis was performed. Parallel to the experiments, a simulation program was written, designed to take non-uniform flow into account. The program is based on a local (section by section) analysis scheme. To validate the program, a series of non-uniform measurements was performed. Results showed that the program is able to predict the impact of non-uniform inlet flow conditions. The numerical code can be used as a design tool to develop more efficient heat exchangers.     

Effect of Flow Distribution to the Channels on the Thermal Performance of the Multipass Plate Heat Exchangers

Over last two decades, plate heat exchangers (PHEs) have presented themselves as a viable alternative to the conventional shell and tube heat exchangers in the process and power industries. The thermal theory available for plate heat exchangers in the literature largely works on the assumption of equal flow in each channel. However, it is well known that the distribution of fluid from port to channel in PHE is far from being uniform. The present study brings about this port to channel flow distribution effect on the thermal behavior of multipass plate heat exchangers. The variation of the heat transfer coefficient due to flow variation from channel to channel has also been taken into consideration. Heat exchangers with both equal and unequal passes of the fluids have been studied. The results indicate that the flow maldistribution severely affects the performance of plate heat exchangers, and multipassing can act as an important tool to reduce the deterioration in performance due to maldistribution. The results show that with a low number of passes, the increase of velocity of fluid may be counterproductive in terms of heat transfer enhancement. Also, adding plates in order to increase the heat transfer surface may not be effective due to an increase in flow maldistribution. The correlations for 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, and 2-3 pass plate heat exchangers with the maldistribution index as a parameter are also presented.     

Experimental Studies on Thermal Performance and Flow Resistance of Heat Exchangers with Helical Baffles

In this study, the shell-side heat transfer performance and flow resistance of the shell-and-tube heat exchangers with third-symmetrical, quarter-symmetrical, quarter-unsymmetrical helical baffles and segmental baffles were experimentally obtained. Except for the baffles, these heat exchangers had the same geometrical configuration and number of tubes. Cold and hot water were used as working fluids in the shell and the tube side, respectively. The experiments were done with the cold water volumetric flow rate ranging between 3 and 7 m³/h and the hot water volumetric flow rate constant at 5.5 m³/h. The results show that the heat exchanger with segmental baffles has higher shell-side heat transfer performance and flow resistance than those with helical baffles. Among the three helical baffles used, the third-symmetrical helical baffle offers the highest shell-side heat transfer performance and flow resistance. The quarter-unsymmetrical helical baffle offers the lowest shell-side flow resistance. Its performance of shell-side heat transfer is also the lowest one but close to that of the quarter-symmetrical helical baffle, so the quarter-unsymmetrical helical baffle provides the best conversion efficiency in all heat exchangers mentioned. Compared with the segmental baffle, the shell-side Nusselt numbers that the third-symmetrical, the quarter-symmetrical, and the quarter-unsymmetrical helical baffle offer decrease on the average by about 26%, 37%, and 38%, respectively, and the corresponding shell-side Euler numbers they provide decrease on the average by about 33%, 49%, and 55%, respectively. Thus, the relative shell-side conversion efficiencies increase by about 9%, 25%, and 39% on the average, respectively.     

Parallel-Flow Heat Exchangers with Ambient Thermal Interaction

A mathematical model is developed to study the performance of a parallel-flow heat exchanger in which both fluid streams are interacting thermally with the surroundings. The fluid temperatures are found to be dependent on the magnitude of the ambient temperature relative to fluid inlet temperatures, the ratios of conductances between the fluids and the ambient and the interfluid conductance, the ratio of minimum to maximum fluid capacities, and the number of transfer units, NTU, for the heat exchanger. Two heat exchanger effectiveness criteria, one each for the hot and cold fluids, are used to study performance. The effectiveness is found to be adversely affected by increasing conductance ratios, increasing NTU, and increasing temperature difference between the ambient and the fluid of interest. For very high values of the conductance ratios, the heat exchanger will not perform as expected and both fluid temperatures will approach that of the ambient. The parallel-flow arrangement is compared to counterflow and is found to be less effective under the external heat transfer condition.     

Thermal Performance of Elliptical Fin-and-Tube Heat Exchangers with Vortex Generator under Various Inclination Angles

Elliptical fin-and-tube heat exchangers are commonly used in air conditioning,heating,refrigeration industries,and ventilation.This study numerically investigates the effect of vortex generators on the performance of elliptical fin-and-tube heat exchanger under different inclination angles.In this study,air flow that is in the transitional regime is selected as the working fluid.Reynolds numbers at the inlet are varied in a range of 1300 to 2100,and the shear stress transport k-ωturbulence model is selected to solve the non-closure of basic turbulence equations.The ellipticity ratios of the tubes which are used for the analysis are between 0.6 and 1.0,and the inclination angles are varied from 15°to 75°.The effects of different inclination angles of vortex generators on the Colburn factor j,friction factor f,and efficiency index j/f are analyzed.The friction and Colburn factors are observed to increase with increasing vortex generator inclination angles.It is found that the efficiency factors for a 15°vortex generator inclination angle at 0.6,0.7,0.8,and 0.9 ellipticity ratios improve compared to the corresponding cases with no vortex generator.However,the vortex generator cannot improve the efficiency factor of the circular tube heat exchanger.The 3 D CFD method employed by this study has great potential for use in optimally designing the arrangement of the vortex generators to enhance the performance of heat exchangers.     

Application of Transient Analysis Methodology to Quantify Thermal Performance of Heat Exchangers

A transient testing technique is developed to evaluate the thermal performance of industrial-scale heat exchangers. A Galerkin-based numerical method with a choice of spectral basis elements to account for spatial temperature variations in heat exchangers is developed to solve the transient heat exchanger model equations.

Testing a heat exchanger in the transient state may be the only viable alternative where conventional steady-state testing procedures are impossible or infeasible. For example, this methodology is particularly suited to the determination of apparent fouling levels in component cooling water system heat exchangers in nuclear power plants. The head load on these so-called component coolers under steady-state conditions is too small to permit meaningful testing. An adequate heat load develops immediately after a reactor shutdown when the exchanger inlet temperatures are highly time-dependent. The application of the analysis methodology is illustrated herein with reference to an in-situ transient testing carried out at a nuclear power plant. The method, however, is applicable to any transient testing application.     

Numerical Investigation of the Inlet Baffle,Header Geometry,and Triangular Fins Effects on Plate-Fin Heat Exchangers Performance

In this study, the optimal location of baffle in the header of air-to-air plate heat exchangers and the geometry of the header and the effects of triangular fins arrays on the effectiveness were numerically investigated for different flow rates and Reynolds numbers on different models. The main purpose of inlet baffle and geometry changes is to improve the pattern of flow distribution and assist flow uniformity. The investigations show that the optimal location of the inlet baffle with high Reynolds numbers has an insignificant effect on effectiveness, while with Reynolds numbers 250–3000, the effectiveness is affected significantly by baffle location. On the other hand, the reduction in flow gradients by changes in geometry can improve flow distribution. Moreover, investigations show that the increase in fin density (fins/mm) up to a specific value can enhance the effectiveness. In the present study, the Colburn j-factor behavior versus different Reynolds numbers, velocity distributions, pressure drops, and velocity vectors is examined.     

Advanced Numerical Methodology to Analyze High-Temperature Wire-Net Compact Heat Exchangers For a Micro-Combined Heat and Power System Application

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to predict compact heat exchanger (CHE) performance for a miniaturized combined heat and power system by a detailed modeling of the complex microchannels and assessing the collector performance using a new reduced order modeling (ROM). The ROM was introduced to decrease the computational size and predict the collector performance with a reasonable accuracy. The CHE is assembled as a stack of counter-flow passages with optimized thickness and an isotropic wire-net (to provide required stiffness and enhance the mixing) which separates the thin partition foils. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology comprises of conjugate heat transfer (CHT) analysis for a microchannel section and ROM to analyze the entire CHE performance based on the collector performance. The porous medium model, based on the Darcy-Forchheimer law, is modified (constant integration method) to account for the temperature evolution and localized turbulence effects. The resulting microchannel characteristics from a series of three-dimensional CFD-CHT analysis are used to calculate the inertial and viscous coefficients using the constant integration method. These characteristics have been implemented and verified numerically as well as experimentally. The best-revised methodology allows obtaining pressure drop with less than three percent error with respect to the CHT model.     

Application of a Genetic Algorithm for Thermal Design of Fin-and-Tube Heat Exchangers

Instead of the traditional trial-and-error process, a genetic algorithm (GA) is successfully applied to thermal design of fin-and-tube heat exchangers (FTHEs). The design method uses a GA to search and optimize structure sizes of FTHEs. The minimum total weight or total annual cost of FTHEs is taken as the objective function in the GA, respectively. Seven design parameters are varied for the optimization objectives. The implementation of the design method consists of a GA routine and a thermal design routine. In the GA routine, binary coding for tournament selection, uniform crossover, and one-point mutation is adopted. In the thermal design routine, thermal design of the FTHE is carried out according to the conditions of the structure sizes that the genetic algorithm generated, and the log-mean temperature difference method is used to determine the heat transfer area under the combined structure sizes for a given heat duty. Optimization shows that it is possible to achieve a great reduction in cost or weight, whenever such objectives have been chosen for minimization. The method is universal and may be used for thermal design and optimization of FTHEs under different specified duties.     

顺排与叉排套片式换热器的热力性能对比研究

套片式换热器的管束排列形式一般都是叉排,顺排非常少见。由于顺排形式的套片式换热器通常比叉排的流动阻力更小,因而对一些流动阻力有限制的场合,可以考虑使用顺排形式的套片式换热器。为论证这一点,对某种结构形式的顺排套片式换热器和叉排套片式换热器的热力性能进行了对比研究。为便于对比、分析,两个换热器试件的纵向管间距及管排数设计成相等。结果显示:两个试件的热力性能非常接近。分析表明,在某些应用场合,套片式换热器排列成顺排是更合适的选择。图7参6     

Design of Regenerative Heat Exchangers

Rotary regenerators are used widely for energy recovery, both in industrial and air-conditioning applications, because of the advantages they have over other types of heat exchangers. In this study, a mathematical model for the design of rotary regenerators is presented. The method is valid for all kinds of channel geometries that form the matrix of a rotary regenerator and can be used for all rotational speeds. The validity of the method is tested with the experimental and numerical results available for rotational speeds between 0.05 and 7 rev/min. A good agreement between the model and the experimental numerical results is obtained. The method presented can therefore be recommended for the safe design of rotary regenerators.     

Predicting the Performance of Multistage Heat Exchangers

A simple method for predicting the thermal performance of multistage heat exchangers is proposed. The technique involves an area weighting scheme of the reseated Colburn J factors. The method is developed for, and probably limited to, applications with indirect contact, direct transfer heat exchangers operated in series. However, condensing heat exchangers are amenable to this technique, and thus it offers more flexibility and wider applicability than previously proposed methods. Experimental data for a two-stage, condensing heat exchanger are reported, and the behavior is compared to the predictive scheme with moderate success. While the behavior of multistage heat exchangers may be affected by interstage spacing, the data from the experiments do not allow quantification of the impact of this effect.     

An Investigation on Cooling Performance of Air-Cooled Heat Exchangers Used in Coal Seam Gas Production

ABSTRACT

This paper reports an investigation into a practical cooling issue on a type of fan-forced finned-tube heat exchangers used in Queensland's coal seam gas (CSG) industry. CSG compression facilities in some production sites suffered underproduction in recent summers because of frequent automatic engine shutdowns. The problem is not expected by the manufacturer's design. However, it is suspected of being related to the control systems on the compression facilities triggering the overheating-protection shutdowns due to possible deficiencies in one or some water/gas cooling loops in the facilities’ air-cooled heat exchangers. Therefore, to understand which heat exchangers and what exact reasons cause the unexpected cooling issue, an investigation has been carried out on the cooler units of the gas compression facilities. A field instrumentation measurement on one operating cooler unit has been done, followed by an analysis using a one-dimensional analytical model and a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model. The experimental results are used to validate both the models. Then the cooling performance of the cooler unit under the summer peak condition is predicted by the verified models. The prediction suggests that the water inlet temperature in one particular cooler section is higher than its upper limit defined by the manufacturer, due to poor cooling at high ambient temperatures. The lower cooling performance is caused by large reductions in the cooler air speed and total heat transfer coefficient, which are related to less efficiency of the cooler fans, more airflow resistance, and fouling on both sides of the finned tubes.     

Heat Exchangers Design Under Variable Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient: Improved Analytical and Numerical Approaches

In typical heat exchanger design methods it is generally assumed that the overall heat transfer coefficient is constant and uniform; however, the heat transfer coefficients on the hot and cold sides of the heat exchanger may vary with flow Reynolds number, surface geometries, fluid thermophysical properties, and other factors. In this article we present simple analytical and numerical methods for calculating heat transfer area for data sets introduced earlier in the literature. For the analytical methods presented in the article, the variation in the overall heat transfer coefficient with the local hot and cold fluid temperature difference is expressed as a power-law model and as a general polynomial model. The procedure for calculating the heat transfer area with the power-law model is explained with respect to a simple closed-form solution, while the polynomial model can also provide an analytical solution that seems to be quite accurate for the data sets examined. It is also shown that a Chebyshev numerical integration scheme that requires four points compared to the Simpson method of three points is quite accurate (within 1% of the exact value).     

Numerical and Experimental Investigation on the Performance of Battery Thermal Management System Based on Micro Heat Pipe Array

Battery thermal management is very crucial for the safe and long-term operation of electric vehicles or hybrid electric vehicles. In this study, numerical simulation method is adopted to simulate the temperature field of Li-ion battery cell and module. It is proved that the maximum temperature and maximum temperature difference of battery cell and module increase with the increase of charge/discharge rate(C-rate) of the battery. For battery module, it can reach a maximum temperature of 61.1°C at...     

Air-Side Fouling of Compact Heat Exchangers for Discrete Particle Size Ranges

The industrial problem of the air-side fouling of compact heat exchangers has been studied in a laboratory wind tunnel for particles in the μm to mm range. The measurements of pressure drop across the exchanger as well as the quantification and classification of the particles blocked by and passing through it were taken for discrete ranges of particle sizes. Observation showed that the blocked particles either drop to the wind tunnel floor, remain on the outside surface of the exchanger (falling to the floor once the wind velocity drops), or penetrate a short distance into it according to the relative values of fin spacing and particle size. These last are the most detrimental to exchanger performance. There is a critical particle size for which this penetration is maximal. A brief non-dimensional geometrical analysis allows one to predict this critical size range for any finned exchanger. It has been found to be between 0.5–0.7 times the diameter of the largest sphere that can be inscribed between the fins. Confirmation of this was found with a second exchanger. The addition of humid conditions within the tunnel or on the exchanger itself did not modify these values. Subtracting the pressure drop due to the clean exchanger from the total measured value confirms that the foulant acts like an extra mechanical filter in series with the exchanger. This is quite understandable given the short penetration length of the particles (up to 3 mm). Finally, the effects of a closed wind tunnel test section on the measurements for non-isothermal conditions in the exchanger are discussed.     

空-空热管式中冷器设计与热力性能试验研究

依据热管式换热器的特点,编制了空-空热管式中冷器的设计程序,并设计了试验用热管式换热器样件对该设计程序进行试验验证。利用通用的传热系数计算公式程序所得的计算值与试验所得的实测值变化趋势基本一致,说明所编制的计算程序是实用和可靠的。根据试验结果对设计程序进行了修正,热空气出口温度最大偏差为0.5℃,热流量最大偏差为7W,表明修正后程序的计算结果与试验结果吻合较好。用试验数据分析了欧拉数与雷诺数的关系,拟合得到适合空-空热管式换热器的阻力计算的准则方程式,压降修正结果与实测值最大偏差为31.39Pa,误差不超过6%,说明在中冷器设计程序中可以利用拟合公式较好的分析压降。